Exposure system and method with group compensation

ABSTRACT

An exposure system with group compensation. The exposure system includes a lot classification database, a compensation unit and a first exposure device. The lot classification database records a group classification of at least one lot wafer. The compensation unit obtains the group classification of the lot wafer from the lot classification database, retrieves a group compensation value according to the group classification, and compensates overlay parameters according to the group compensation value. The first exposure device performs a back-end process including overlay and exposure processes on the lot wafer using the compensated overlay parameters.

This application is a divisional of U.S. application Ser. No.10/629,030, filed Jul. 28, 2003.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to an exposure system and method, andparticularly to an exposure system and method with group compensationfor an exposure device in semiconductor manufacturing.

2. Description of the Related Art

Photolithography is one of the most important technologies insemiconductor manufacturing. It seriously affects structures of MOSdevices, such as patterns of layers and doped regions. Typically, thenumber of masks used in photolithography indicates the complexity of amanufacturing process. As described above, since photolithography iscomplicated, the exposure device performing the photolithography cancreate a bottleneck in semiconductor manufacturing.

Exposure of wafers is generally implemented in a “Step and Repeat”fashion to transfer high resolution patterns to the wafers, the exposuredevice is thus referred to as Stepper. That is to say, the pattern onthe mask is projected and sized to one portion or block of the wafer.This is repeatedly implemented for all blocks on the wafer one by oneuntil the entire wafer is exposed.

FIG. 1 illustrates the overlay relation between front-end and back-endprocesses. In this case, the patterns of layers to be exposed in therespective back-end processes (back-end process 1 (101), back-endprocess 2 (102) and back-end process 3 (103)) have to overlay those inthe front-end process 100. Since only the pattern of one of layers istransferred to the wafer after each block of the wafer is exposed, andthere are many patterns of layers and corresponding masks involved inone manufacturing process, addition to piece alignment between theblocks of the wafer and overlay alignment between the patterns of thelayers is essential to the photolithography processing step.

However, performance of an exposure device always slightly varies withtime. For a precisely accurate exposure, the wafers processed must bemeasured to compensate for parameters (recipe) used by the exposuredevice. The recipe will be compensated and used by the exposure deviceto process the subsequent wafers. In general, the recipe compensation isimplemented manually or using a feedback system. Taiwanese Patent 516099discloses a method and apparatus of wafer exposure with correctionfeedback that employs a feedback system using a computer system tocalculate values and use the values to compensate overlay parameters.

The device and mask used for exposure in the front-end process willaffect the compensation for overlay parameters in the back-endprocesses. However, the conventional system calculates the compensationusing mixed calculation, that is the device and mask used for exposurein the front-end process are not considered. Therefore, the compensationcalculation for products processed by different devices and masks in theback-end processes will affect each other, thereby making thecompensation calculation unstable, raising the rework rate, and damagingthe throughput of the manufacturing process.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide anexposure system and method with recipe compensation in groupclassification for an exposure device in semiconductor manufacturing.

To achieve the above object, the present invention provides an exposuresystem. The exposure system includes a lot classification database, acompensation unit and a first exposure device. The lot classificationdatabase records a group classification of at least one lot wafer. Thecompensation unit obtains the group classification of the lot wafer fromthe lot classification database, retrieves a group compensation valueaccording to the group classification, and compensates overlayparameters according to the group compensation value. The first exposuredevice performs a back-end process including overlay and exposureprocesses on the lot wafer using the compensated overlay parameters.

Further, an exposure method is provided. First, the group classificationof a lot wafer is obtained. Then, a group compensation value isretrieved according to the group classification, and overlay parametersare compensated according to the group compensation value. Thereafter, aback-end process including overlay and exposure processes is performedto the lot wafer using the compensated overlay parameters.

The group classification of the lot wafer is determined according to thedevice and mask used in a front-end process. In addition, the groupclassification is updated after the lot wafer undergoes the back-endprocess.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The aforementioned objects, features and advantages of the inventionwill become apparent by referring to the following detailed descriptionof the preferred embodiment with reference to the accompanying drawings,wherein:

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating the overlay relation betweenfront-end and back-end processes;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating an exposure system accordingto the present invention; and

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing an exposure method according to thepresent invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

FIG. 2 illustrates the exposure system according to the presentinvention. The exposure system includes a first exposure device 210, asecond exposure device 200, a lot classification database 220 and acompensation unit 230.

The first exposure device 210 includes an overlay unit 211 and anexposure unit 212. The overlay unit 101 performs an overlay processincluding piece alignment of blocks and overlay alignment of layers on alot wafer according to overlay parameters, such as offset of X axis(Offset_X), offset of Y axis (Offset_Y), shot scaling of X axis (ShotScaling X), shot scaling of Y axis (Shot Scaling Y), shot orthogonality(Shot Ortho), shot rotation (Shot Rot) and others. The exposure unit 212performs an exposure process on the lot wafer after the overlay unit 101performs the overlay process on the lot wafer. After the overlay andexposure processes, the processed lot wafer may be further processed inother manufacturing steps.

It should be noted that the second exposure device 200 may have similarcomponents to that in the first exposure device 210. In this case, thesecond exposure device 200 may be the first exposure device 210. In theembodiment, the second exposure device 200 is the exposure deviceperforming the front-end process of the lot wafer, and the firstexposure device 210 is the exposure device performing the back-endprocess of the lot wafer.

The lot classification database 220 records the group classificationinformation of each lot wafer in the production line. The groupclassification is determined according to the device and mask used inthe front-end process, and the second exposure device 200 records thegroup classification of each lot wafer in the lot classificationdatabase 220 after the lot wafer undergoes the front-end process.

The compensation unit 230 has a group compensation value database 231recording the group compensation values corresponding to respectivegroup classification. The compensation unit 230 may obtain the groupclassification of the lot wafer from the lot classification database220, retrieve a group compensation value from the group compensationvalue database 231 according to the group classification, and compensateoverlay parameters used in the first exposure device 210 according tothe group compensation value. The first exposure device 210 performs aback-end process including overlay and exposure processes on the lotwafer using the compensated overlay parameters.

FIG. 3 shows the exposure method according to the present invention.First, in step S301, the compensation unit 230 obtains the groupclassification of the lot wafer from the lot classification database220. It should be noted that after the lot wafer undergoes the front-endprocess, the second exposure device 200 determines the groupclassification of the lot wafer according to the device and mask usedtherein, and updates it to the lot classification database 220.

Then, in step S302, the compensation unit 230 retrieves a groupcompensation value from the group compensation value database 231according to the group classification, and in step S303, compensatesoverlay parameters, such as Offset_X, Offset_Y, Shot Scaling X, ShotScaling Y, Shot Ortho and Shot Rot used in the first exposure device 210according to the group compensation value.

Thereafter, in step S304, the first exposure device 210 performs aback-end process including overlay and exposure processes on the lotwafer using the compensated overlay parameters. After the lot waferundergoes the back-end process, in step S305, the first exposure device210 updates the group classification of the lot wafer to the lotclassification database 220 according to the device and mask usedtherein.

As a result, using the exposure system and method with groupcompensation according to the present invention, the lot wafers can beclassified according to the device and mask used in the front-endprocess, and the compensation calculation in the back-end process can beseparately performed in respective group classification, therebyreducing the rework rate and improving the throughput of themanufacturing process.

Although the present invention has been described in its preferredembodiments, it is not intended to limit the invention to the preciseembodiments disclosed herein. Those who are skilled in this technologycan still make various alterations and modifications without departingfrom the scope and spirit of this invention. Therefore, the scope of thepresent invention shall be defined and protected by the following claimsand their equivalents.

1. An exposure method with group compensation, comprising the steps of:obtaining a group classification of a lot of wafers, in which the groupclassification is determined according to a device and a mask used in afront-end process; retrieving a group compensation value according tothe group classification; compensating at least one overlay parameteraccording to the group compensation value; and performing a back-endprocess including overlay and exposure processes on the lot of wafersusing the compensated overlay parameters.
 2. The exposure method withgroup compensation as claimed in claim 1 further comprising providing asecond exposure device to perform the front-end process on the lot ofwafers, and determine the group classification of the lot of wafers. 3.The exposure method with group compensation as claimed in claim 1further comprising updating the group classification after the lot ofwafers undergoes the back-end process.
 4. The exposure method with groupcompensation as claimed in claim 3 wherein the group classification isupdated according to the device and mask used in the back-end process.